About
Divisions
About Molecular Mimicry
Molecular Mimicry is a biological concept that describes when something in the body, usually a protein on a virus or a cell, mimics something that it is not. I originally trained as a virologist, so in this context the proteins on the surface of a virus could look like that of its host. Effectively hiding itself from the immune system. This is a useful strategy for a virus that wants to discreetly infect a host, but it is a bad strategy if that virus is trying to create its own identity.
I have always struggled with pinpointing my identity. I am a child of a Pakistani and Colombian couple born and raised in California. I am a scientist, an artist, a librarian, a hippie, a techie, a public speaker, a performer, a dancer, a musician, a Muslim. I am so many things sometimes I feel like I will never fully be any of those things. To me, Molecular Mimicry represents the shapeshifting of my identity that enables me to fit within the communities which surround me. In a sense, it allows me to be a part of an unending array of things, but it also perpetuates the struggle in identifying my identity.
I convey this through my art which manifests in various forms that you can explore in this web space.
The Person Behind the Project
Ibraheem Ali, PhD
Digital Prints
Separator
The Kitten Revolution
The Time Has Come for me to tell you the story of the revolutionary kitten
He was a skiddish fellow, unusually mellow, and lived in a world with powoerful oppressors
One strange day, he ate a weird root, and all of the colors began to sing.
